Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

       Robert Cialdini is a Psychologist and Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. He has earned himself a Ph. D. in the 70s and a name for his work in Psychology. He is predominantly known for his seminal book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” written way back in 1984. Like an aging wine, the book has grown on people over the years and has earned itself a distinction of being an authoritative book on human psychology.  The book is part of famous investor Charlie Munger’s library and finds mention in his recommended list.

With the illuminati backing the book, I was naturally drawn to the book and needless to say I was awed and enthralled by the content and presentation of the material in the book. Expectations were high and I was not disappointed. Some of the concepts were known to me partly due to my own experience and partly due my readings. However, by the end of the book, I came out educated and enriched. Without much ado let us dive into the summary of the book.

Robert starts his narration with an interesting incident. The author's friend, who runs a jewelry shop, was trying to sell an item; but in vain. On one particular day, by mistake she advertised the item to cost twice the price instead of half the price. To her surprise the item got sold instantly. The author believes the reason for this incident was that fact that some traveler saw the ad and his automatic reaction was "expensive=good" leading to his decision to buy the product. Animals (including humans) have a very interesting automatic behavior pattern. The above example was one such automatic behavior pattern where we feel "expensive=good". When these incidents happen, our mind reacts automatically and performs a pre-defined fixed pattern of tasks. He terms it “Click-Whirr” i.e. a tape runs in our human mind and we do things in an automatic fashion. Robert gives another example from the animal world. The female firefly of one species (Photuris) have learnt a trick to eat male fireflies of another species (Photinus). The female photuris have secretly learnt and mastered the mating signal of Photinus species. So they emit the mating signal of Photinus species and the male firefly thinking that it is a mating call rushes only to be eaten up by the female Photuris fireflies.

 

As a precursor to the interesting aspects of human mind and the various influences, author presents some examples on something called contrasting principle.

·         If we meet a very beautiful women at a party and subsequently meet an unattractive lady, the second lady appears uglier that she actually is.

·         In a showroom the seller will show you a very expensive item followed by an item that is relatively inexpensive. Due to the contrasting principle, the second item appears cheaper (even though it is expensive) and we tend to buy it.

This book delves on six principles that influence human mind. Using various examples, the author argues convincingly the impact of these six principles on human psyche, the principles being, reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity.

 

Reciprocation

Human beings have a natural tendency to reciprocate. We try to repay in kind to people who have helped us in some form or the other. For example if someone gives us a birthday present, we end up giving one on his/her birthday. Or for that matter if someone calls us to a party, we tend to call them to one of our parties. This sense of obligation is present in humankind for a very long time. This was instituted as an adaptive mechanism so that human labor can be divided (different people doing different work and sharing the result). This sense of indebtness/reciprocation has built the humanity because it lets one person to share (ex: food, energy etc) without the fear of loss because he is sure that the other person knows he is indebted and will repay back in some form or the other in future. This resulted in evolution of complex systems like trade, aid, defence etc. The person who takes something from someone and does not do a return favor is not seen in good light by the society and such a person is termed moocher, ingrate, welsher. Robert cites the example of Hare krishna movement where a devotee would offer a flower to you as a gift. He feels that one gets obligated by this gesture and is compelled to either buy Bhagwat Gita or donate to the organization. He cites an example where “would-be” politicians give gifts to electorate to win elections. The rule can be seen playing a part in the free sample campaign. A company gives small free sample of a product and you reciprocate by buying a bigger product from the company.  I remember a cloths shop that used to give a glass of juice as soon as we entered the shop this made us indebted and we would end up buying some dress in the shop.

A variation of reciprocal principle is “reciprocal concession”. A person offers you something. You reject it as you don't like reciprocation. The guy offers something else the second time. You accept the second offer and fall into reciprocation by concession trap. People exploit this by first offering something they know you will refuse then they offer the product they are pushing through and you end up buying that item. The principle can be seen during negotiations by labor unions. Labor negotiators sometimes use this by putting demands that cannot be met. When the company rejects this, the union place their actual demand. The company accepts this due to “reciprocal concession” trap. This technique is also called rejection-then-retreat. Sales agent use this technique in malls by deliberately showing you an expensive product which you reject. Then they show you a lesser priced product. Your mind automatically accepts this product. However, if the sales agent had started the discussion with the second product, you would have rejected the product right away thinking that it is expensive. I have been a subject of this trick many times. In one case the seller tried to sell me an expensive encyclopedia. When I refused he immediately showed me a set of books for kids that was priced lesser. Another personal experience is when a seller tried to sell an expensive piece of cloth to me. When I refused, he immediately tried to sell a pair of socks which was much cheaper.

 

Commitment and consistency

Robert describes the second principle that influences the human psychology. He names it as “commitment and consistency”. People like to be consistent. When they take a decision, they do not like to change the decision. They do this because they believe that others perceive a constantly changing person as non-trustable. Being consistent has another advantage, we don't have to re-evaluate all options every time. If we are consistent, we simply choose the solution that is consistent with previous choice. Robert cites an interesting example of consistency from his personal experience. There was a seminar on transcendental meditation to which author and his friend had gone. His friend, being a psychologist, tore apart the concept and tried to prove that this whole exercise was worthless. The organizers more or less agreed to most of the arguments. In spite of that, most of the audience went ahead and committed to the program. The author feels that this was due to the preconceived notion of the participants. The audience came to the introductory session with an expectation to join the course and by not joining the class they would have been inconsistent with their prior belief. Hence they went ahead with the registration. Another example of consistency is the toy companies. They heavily advertise a toy during Christmas and under-produce it leading to a scarcity. However, you would have promised your boy, the toy and since the toy is not available, you buy him s different toy. Post-Christmas, the company suddenly manufactures the item in large quantity. Since the toy is available, you are forced to buy the original toy due to your commitment to your son. So the toy company made you buy two toys because you wanted to be seen as a consistent person in front of your son. A personal example I have seen is related to eating egg. In certain belief systems one does not eat meat (this includes egg). In spite of knowing that eating egg is not same as killing an animal and in spite of the fact that egg is one of the most nutritious food, people do not eat it as it goes against their commitment to society not to eat it.

If you want someone to be consistent with his/her word then the pre-requisite is that the person should first commit to it. A commitment binds the person to the task. The author substantiates this claim with many examples. Salesman initially try to sell a small item at a striking deal price. This hooks the customer (aka commitment) to the salesman/company/shop resulting in high-margin sales in future. Another aspect of consistency is to make people write it down on a paper. When people commit in writing, they stick to the commitment. For example, companies run lucky-dip contest where people have to fill slogan, for example, "I like the products of xyz company because ……". When people write this, they implicitly get committed to products of these companies. The third aspect of consistency is to make someone commit in public view. When someone commits publicly, he/she will be consistent and makes sure the promise follows through, else people will treat the person as irresponsible. Camps like alcohol de-addiction camp make you write your commitment to stay away from alcohol and also make you read it in public. Once you accept your goal in public, you tend to stick to it.

Robert feels that the best form of commitment is the one that comes from the inner self. For someone to commit something and be consistent, the choice has to come from inside and should not be forced. To me, this point was the highlight of the topic.  The author says and I quote:

"Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibilities for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures. A large reward is one such external pressure. It may get us to perform a certain action, but it won't get us to accept inner responsibility for the act. Consequently, we won't feel committed to it. The same is true of a strong threat, it may motivate immediate compliance, but it is unlikely to produce long term result".

This statement has a very lasting impact on the way we rear children. The authors says and I quote:

"All this has import implications for rearing children. It suggests that we should never heavily bribe or threaten our children to do the things we want them truly to believe in. Such pressures will probably produce temporary compliance with our wishes. However, if we want more than just that, if we want the children to believe in the correctness of what they have done, if we want them to continue to perform the desired behavior when we are not present to apply those outside pressures, then we must somehow arrange for them to accept inner responsibility for the actions we want them to take."

So how does one enforce the child to take inner responsibility? The author suggests ways to do it based on the nature of the child. For example, for some kids it is sufficient if you say "It is bad to lie. I hope you don't do it". For some others you may have to say, " Don't lie or else I will be disappointed in you" and for some kids a warning may be required, for example, "… and I will have to do something I don't want to do". I personally believe that we can try a combination of both reward and an action. We can give them a reward and tell them that "we are not there to enforce the fact that you should not lie. If, in-spite of this you lie then we will be extremely disappointed with you".

 

Social Proof

The third aspect of influence is the impact of social proof on humans. Robert illustrates this concept by taking the example of comedy shows. Comedy shows on TV always are accompanied by a canned laughter track. The track is added to each episode in spite of the known fact that people hate it. The reason for adding the track is based on a research that people laugh when the canned laughter is played in the background even though the jokes are poor. This begs a question, why do we laugh when the laughter tracks are played?  The canned laughter is a social proof to us that the joke is funny because someone seems to be laughing even though we know for fact that this is an added laughter. We laugh nevertheless. Social proof is deeply ingrained in our psyche! This is another example of our click-whirr tapes that run in our mind, the laughter triggers our tape and we laugh.

Social proof can be defined as a principle: It states that one means we use to determine correctness of a thing/situation is to find out what other people think is correct. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others perform it. And why do we believe in this? As a rule we make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. Usually when a lot of people are doing something, we believe it is the right thing to do. People can exploit this human aspect in many ways, for example: In a public gathering for accepting donations, the organizing committee adds its own people who donate, this triggers a notion that the rest should donate as well. Even ecommerce sites have reviews and ratings section just to provide a social proof of the products. In many sites the reviewers would be ranked as top 500 or top 10 reviewers. Their opinion adds further stamp of approval on the product being sold. `The author cites an experiment done on kids where it was found that, to remove the fear of dogs in kids, it was enough to show these kids videos of other kid being comfortable playing with the dogs. An interesting aspect that all of us have been through is when a person stops on the road and starts to look up at something (or even nothing), lot of people come and start looking up. This draws many more people.

Another instance when we depend on others opinion is when we are unsure of ourselves. This is a case of Pluralistic Ignorance because what we fail to realize is even they are clueless and looking at us for direction. Ultimately it all ends up as "pluralistic ignorance". Robert cites a glaring example of pluralistic ignorance during a murder in broad daylight on a street, wherein, a lady in her late twenties was murdered by being tortured for hours and people kept looking at the murder from their balcony. No one came to the rescue because everyone were looking at each other for proof that some action is required and no-one took action. Hence, in an emergency, there is no safety in public. They are all looking at social proof to decide if they have to act and the social proof was not to act so they did not act. This leads to the question on what should one do in case of emergency. The author gives a tip. He says that if there is an emergency situation, you will get help only if there is a single bystander. He/she does not have social proof to fall-back on so he/she will rush for emergency help. In a situation where there are more than one bystander, you can forget about getting help. The other way to get help is to do the following: Use the word "help". This alerts the by-stander that you are in danger. However the bystander still does not know the reason for emergency and who among the crowd should help. So it is your job to point to one single person and say "The person in blue jeans can you call ambulance". This will trigger sudden reaction and you will get help. 

Liking

The fourth principle of social influence the author introduces is called “liking”. As a rule we prefer to say “yes” to the requests of someone we know and like. We invariably buy tupperware from sellers who are our friends or relatives. We donate to charity when a friend/relative is involved even though we don't like the item/cause of charity. In fact, we even buy an item when it is being sold by a seller who is a complete stranger after he mentions a name of a friend of ours who seems to have referred the seller to us. We do this so that we don't disappoint our friend by not buying the item.

Physical attractiveness: Robert says that being physically attractive gives one an edge. Being physically attractive is severely underrated. If a person is physically attractive, our “click-whirr” response automatically gets triggered and we like that person. A physically attractive person is automatically associated with talent, kindness, honesty and intelligence (even if that person may not have these qualities). The fascinating part of this aspect is the point that people deny they got swayed by the attractiveness of the person. Yet they do. Studies have shown its impact in elections, job hiring, judicial cases, getting help in various circumstances. Even in schools good looking kids are assumed to be intelligent.

Similarity: We like people who are similar to us. Similarity could take various forms. For example similarity of opinions, personality traits, background, lifestyle. For example, we like people who dress like us and we end up helping such people when they are in need of help. In one experiment it was noted that people buy life insurance products from sellers who are of similar age or religion or smoking habits as the customer. I live in an apartment complex where people always seem to mingle with others who speak the same language and belong to the same region. It seems natural to bond with fellow people of same state. When people move to different countries they tend to group themselves and stay together with their fellow countrymen. In US you will find a mini china or mini India wherever you go.

Complements: We fall for complements and we like people who give us complements. We are big time suckers for flattery unless we realize that the other person is trying to manipulate us. We like the complements even if the flattering comment not entirely true. We like it and we like the person giving the complement.

Conditioning and Association: By nature we dislike people who bring bad news even though the person who is bringing the news did not cause the event. So mere association with good or bad news leads people to like or dislike you. In India, Actor Arun Govil played the character of Lord Ram in the serial Ramayana. He was convincing enough as lord Ram. People associated him with Lord Ram. In real life wherever he went people used to bow to him and offer him prayers! Same was the case with Mr. Bharadwaj who play Lord Krishna in Mahabharata. He was not offered any other type of role in other serials fearing backlash from people. Our mothers always told us not to be friends with bad kids. Even though you may not be bad, but by being associated with bad kids you will be perceived as bad. This is an example of negativity due to association. An example of positive association is when a Car company tries to sell a car by placing an attractive model next to it. People perceive the car to be attractive due the model next to it. People associate with teams (football, baseball) etc and can erupt in joy and do craze things because the associate with the team and the feeling is as if they have won. If the team loses then they feel as if they have lost. However people don't like to associate themselves to the loss so when their team loses they will say "they lost". But if the team wins then they will usually say "we won".

 

Authority

Human beings like to follow authority. At least that is the inference the author came to, after his research. In an experiment, an actor was faking a shock on being subjected to dummy voltage from 75 volts up to 450 volts. The test subject was being ordered by a purported scientist to increasing levels of shock. The pleading actor invoked very strong emotions in the test subject. But the test subject kept on increasing the shock levels because the scientist was ordering him to keep giving the shock. The subject was following the order in spite of knowing that the order was not correct. It goes on to show that humans are tuned to follow orders whether correct or not. The subjects felt a sense of duty to follow orders. Having layers of authority is beneficial for human society. Else it will lead to anarchy. Disobedience to authority leads to a life of solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life. Hence right from our birth we are trained to be obedient to proper authority. This point is dug into our minds with various stories, lessons, rhymes, songs in our childhood. This continues in the legal system, military system, political system as we grow old. Even in religious text this point is reiterated and submission to god is emphasized. This obedience to authority has a “click-whirr” in our mind. A glaring example of this is seen in medical field where the hospital staff blindly follows the doctor's instructions even when it was wrong or could be erroneous. It has been seen that 10% of cardiac arrests were result of blindly following wrong instructions.

Titles: When a person adds title (like professor), perception about that person increases among the people around him/her. A side effect of this is seen wherein people feel the person is taller than what he/she is. Our mind associates height with the title of the person (Dr., Professor, etc). Some animals use this during a show of authority where they spread their wings or raise their toes or flex muscles. The bigger the competitor, the other animal accepts defeat. So adding title triggers the “click-whirr” in our minds and we accept authority of such a person.

Cloths: Cloths can also result in acceptance of authority. A man dressed in police uniform evokes our submission to authority. This “click-whirr” happens even towards doctors, army men, priests when they are dressed in their respective robes. People in well-tailored business suites also evoke a sense of authority. This was an eye opener to me that if a person wants to wield authority, business suites/proper attire make a difference.

Scarcity

The final principle that influences human psyche is the concept of scarcity. We attach higher value to an item when it is scarce. Antique items are generally very few in number. If one does not buy it, he/she loses a chance to own a scarce item. On the same lines we value flawed items more, for example a wrong stamp or unnumbered currency note etc. I will go ahead and place precious metals (like gold, platinum) in the same category. We are ready to pay top dollar to own a piece of the metal just so that we can own this scarce commodity.

A variation of scarcity principle is "scarcity with deadline". It is a double blow which results in your immediate attention. For example, a car salesman could say that there is a deadline on a deal that gets over today. In such a case the customer would buy it immediately.

Why do humans fall for scarcity principle? It is because of shortcut applied in the brain where we relate scarcity with quality. An item is scarce because it is of good quality. Or at least is the presumption. "Scarcity = Good" manifests to other areas, for example, banned items. Ex: Banning items like pornography, political rhetoric speeches and movies make people crave these items. For scarcity to work, optimal conditions are necessary. For example, in a cookie tasting experiment people found the cookie to be tasty when there were only two cookies in one jar compared to ten cookies in another jar. The underlying fact being that both jars had the same cookies. As an aside another experiment was done where the jar had 10 cookies and the participant notices that before he could draw a cookie to taste, few cookies disappear from the jar. In such a case the participant rated the cookies as very tasty. A corollary to this is real life observations made during wars. When there is a breakout of war, fundamental rights and freedom of people are temporarily suspended. This results in riots as freedom becomes scare, people want their freedom. Similar example was seen in erstwhile Soviet Union. When Mikhail Gorbachev provided lot of freedom to the people, the Army had an unease. They put Mikhail under house arrest and tried to take back the different freedom granted to the people. This resulted in a massive upheaval as people had got a taste of freedom. When it was removed, freedom became scarce and people reacted to it.

 “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” touches on aspects that impact us in our day-to-day lives. The book provides many more examples to guide us in understanding the common human traits. An excellent book that is worth a read.